I am mother to the bean children: Bean-girl, age seven, and her five-year old sister, the Legume. This is my space--both public and private--to vent, rant, muse, and reflect.

Friday, May 30, 2008

Almost one year

We’ve started giving Baby Legume cow’s milk in a sippy cup. She loves sippy cups—is always trying to steal her sister’s milk. This week she had a wonderful time when she learned the trick of swigging from a cup, filling her cheeks with liquid, and then letting it all dribble out on her high chair tray. The tray was completely overflowing by the time I got to her. It’s amazing how much milk those chipmunk cheeks can hold.

She doesn’t need to breastfeed as much anymore. She doesn’t need me, physically, as much as she once did. She even lets her daddy put her to sleep at night now without protest, without shrieking for me. Tonight it was my turn to rock her to sleep, while Husband read stories to Bean-girl. Holding Legume in the dim light of her bedroom, I remembered the tiny infant that once lay curled against my chest in that very chair. That infant is now gone. In her place is this almost-toddler; not curled in a tiny ball with her feet tucked under her, but stretched out against me with her bare legs dangling down. She looked suddenly so much bigger, so much more grown-up.

“Do you remember when I was in your tummy?” Bean-girl asked me tonight, apropos of nothing, as she got ready for bed. “Do you remember when Baby Legume was in your tummy?”

“Of course,” I said. And of course I do. Almost one year ago, Baby Legume slipped out into this world. I had thought of it earlier in the evening, as I bathed her in the shower and then passed her wet, naked body to the waiting arms of her father. Her slippery, brown naked body that looks nothing like the slippery, skinny, purple and bruised vernix-smeared baby that passed through my body nearly one year past.

It goes by fast. Oh, yes. It does.

I feel that I don’t savor these small moments with her as I should. These rare, small moments alone. I know that Husband and I don’t have time for the concentrated, one-on-one attention we gave her older sister.

But we love you, Baby Legume. All three of us—mom, dad, and sister. You came into our lives to make our family complete. And we are.